


In the Midnight Hour

by Chowder



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Stargazing, Whump, drama that never gets resolved because they're both bad at communicating their feelings, miscommunication really is stupid huh, nostalgic feelings, takes place after Insomnia falls but before they get to Lestallum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 10:39:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17303090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chowder/pseuds/Chowder
Summary: " 'Wanna sleep?' It’s an offer, as Noctis stands and reaches out a hand to help Prompto up. The kid is all skin and bones and muscle, awkwardly gangly from fluctuating weights and the desire to maintain a strict regimen, counting calories more than he did any other type of math. When Prompto is on his feet, Noctis slowly lets go. Their fingertips linger, a warmth within grasp, yet still so far away, left behind in a ruined city. They don't like to think about it too much. "Noctis wishes communicating his feelings was easy.





	In the Midnight Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StrangerInAStrangeWorld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangerInAStrangeWorld/gifts).



The headlights of an oncoming car flash and in their wake lies nothing but total darkness. Noctis' vision slowly adjusts once again, phantom streaks of green light overlapping with his view of the road. He blinks rapidly. The dashboard is lit, and the soft sounds of a guitar filter through the crackle of a radio signal too far to be clear. The white noise does nothing to alleviate the sluggish feel of the atmosphere or clear the stiffened joints caused by hours of driving to a destination that seems reachless.  
  
Noctis pinches the bridge of his nose to relieve the onset of a minor headache. "I can barely see what I'm doing anymore." He straightens at the wheel, adjusting his loosened grip on the hard leather. "How far to the next site?"  
  
"Not too far now, I assure you. Just a bit longer and then we will be able to set up camp and get a good night's rest." Ignis is in the passenger seat, gaze trained unblinkingly on the road. Noctis presses his lips together and refrains from any more complaining.  
  
The road is smooth and straight, endless fields of dry grass and rocky hills stretch beyond the horizon. Another car passes some time later, their high beams drowning the interior of the Regalia in bright yellow. Noctis’ eyelids are heavy. His mouth feels like it's glued shut, so he works his jaw open with a groan. Not only have they been confined to a car for so long, but hunger and fatigue has set in and the fact that they might be too tired to make dinner is all too possible--sour thought that dampens Noctis’ mood further.  
  
In the back seat, Prompto yawns obnoxiously and Gladiolus snorts awake at the noise, head snapping to attention with a protesting _pop_ from its suspended position lying on his chest.

"What time is it?" Gladiolus' voice is groggy.  
  
"Quarter until eleven, I believe,” is the curt reply. Ignis sounds frustrated now. His face is long and there are bags under his eyes, further magnified by his glasses.  
  
"Bet you wish we hadn't taken on that last hunt now, huh?" Prompto means to be teasing, but he just sounds exhausted. "Nothing is worth hunting down things that'll keep us up so late. I need my beauty sleep!" He stretches his arms above his head, whines as the taut muscles are pulled. Noctis wishes he could do the same, confined in the driver’s seat. |  
  
There is a low chuckle from Gladiolus. "I don't think any amount of sleep will make that mug of yours beautiful."

Face bright red, Prompto lets out a protesting wail of indignation. Ignis tries his best not to laugh and ends up coughing instead, hand pressed to his mouth with bruising force. Noctis outright bursts into giggles and places his forehead on the steering wheel, but snaps back to attention when Ignis yells, "Watch the road!" The car swerves dangerously into the other lane before righting itself again. Everyone is definitely awake now.  
  
The blush deepens further down Prompto's neck with the added adrenaline rush. “You guys are _so_ mean.” He covers his face with his hands to hide the redness, folding over himself and letting out a sound like a cross between a hum and a suppressed scream. Noctis is smiling when he glances at his friend in the rear view mirror. Prompto peaks between his fingers to catch Noctis' eyes and grumbles. "You know we missed our stop back there, right?"  
  
It takes a while for that information to set in. From out of the corner of his eye, Noctis enjoys the outrageous look of fear on Ignis face as he makes a U-turn. Not at all as graceful as it could have been, but Noctis is wiped and can't be bothered. Ignis prays for his life quietly.

As obtuse as he may seem, Prompto has a sharpshooter’s keen sense of sight. Sometimes, Noctis forgets that Prompto is so observant.  
  
The interval between when they realise their mistake and when they pull up to the designated campsite passes in relative silence. A third lone car drives by with a mattress on its roof and a camper is towed behind it. Noctis watches longingly through the rearview mirror as it disappears out of sight.  
  
Unlike in the warmth of a cramped caravan, nights are cold out in the open, far from people in bustling cities. Temperatures drop rapidly when night falls, and they are all dying to huddle around a warm campfire. Noctis parks the car on the side of the road. He settles back into his seat with a defeated thump and sags into a boneless heap.

“We better set up camp quick if we want to sleep before morning.” Gladiolus moves with his words, the first to get out of the car to pull out the tent and chairs from the trunk. The rest of the gang follows suit, dragging their feet. It’s way too late for any type of activity. Noctis is ready to give up camping and sleep in the car instead, no matter how bad his back would ache in the morning.

The moon hangs high above them, bright in the absence of artificial light, and the stars shine with a twinkling mischief. Noctis remembers an instance when he was still in high school, laying under the same stars on a warm midsummer night in the Argentums’ small backyard. Prompto’s head is a comforting weight just above Noctis’ heart, their fingers reaching to intertwine. They are sticky with sweat, shirts riding up to reveal toned stomachs. A blanket lays beneath them as they curl up together and talk about everything and nothing at the same time. Nothing seems so important as they drift to sleep under the watchful eye of the moon. They wake in the early morning hours and laugh as they stumble through the door and fall into bed. That moment seems like one not connected to time, apart from a reality that binds them both to the present.

Now, a storm looms ominous before them. But as Gladiolus hammers the tent into the rocky ground and Ignis unrolls bed padding and blankets, they all like to think that they are far removed from this reality. If only for the night.  

After setup is complete, Noctis sits at the edge of the camp dressed for sleep. In the distance, a few shadows lumber across the road close to the car. There's a thud beside him as Prompto takes a seat, sleep shorts riding up a bit on his thighs when he pulls knobby knees to his chest. Noctis tries hard not to stare too long.

“Mind if I join you for a minute?” Prompto’s head tilts, a handsome quirk. “I've been thinking lately,” Prompto says. He's staring off into the distance where the shadows once were, now dissolved into the inky darkness

Noctis raises an eyebrow, scoots closer to Prompto and bumps their shoulders lightly. “Anything in particular or just thinking?”  

Prompto turns to look at Noctis. His eyes are shining in the dark, freckles dapple a sweet constellation across the bridge of his nose. Like an astronomer who spends his life gazing at the sky, when Noctis thinks he’s memorised every feature on Prompto’s face, he finds a new set of speckles to admire. Noctis has always been captivated. Prompto turns away, burning. “About a lot of things, I don't know. They all seem to get jumbled up and I can't, like, sort them out or something? It's complicated, I guess.”

Noctis hums. “We’re complicated people.” He wants to see more of Prompto’s face in better lighting.

The freckled skin wrinkles as Prompto scrunches his nose. He makes a frustrated noise and falls back on the ground in a puff of dust, arms splayed. “I wish we weren't. I don't like complicated things.”

“Wanna sleep?” It’s an offer, as Noctis stands and reaches out a hand to help Prompto up. The kid is all skin and bones and muscle, awkwardly gangly from fluctuating weights and the desire to maintain a strict regimen, counting calories more than he did any other type of math. When Prompto is on his feet, Noctis slowly lets go. Their fingertips linger, a warmth within grasp, yet still so far away, left behind in a ruined city. They don't like to think about it too much.

Prompto is looking at the ground. A beetle crawls between a crack in the rocky surface. “Sure.” It's quiet, voice cracking slightly. He clears his throat. They separate completely.

In the tent, Ignis is fluffing his pillow. “I haven’t set up the cookware, as I believe it to be wiser to get sleep. I advise you two try and do the same. We have more hunts scheduled for tomorrow.”

Gladiolus is already passed out on the far side of the tent, knees bent to accommodate size, arms cushioning his head. Noctis wonders how he can like camping in such cramped conditions, but Gladiolus is content, so no one dares ask.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” The enthusiasm in Prompto’s voice is subdued. He dives into his own pillow with a _whump_ . The shorts have ridden up again. 

“Ditto.” Noctis is more controlled about getting into bed, and lays down on his back between Prompto and Ignis, pulling up blankets to tuck snug under his chin.

Before the world rested on his shoulders, and the childish ambience of the Citadel was all he knew, Noctis would be rocked asleep to the sound of his father’s voice, gravelled by age and duty. The soft whisper of tales of old rolling off the tongue, and Noctis would bury himself in the words; in the weight of the sheets on his bed; in the warmth of his father’s arms. His dreams would be of great kings and their people, and everything was right in the world. Now, he rests in heavy fits, dreams of death and carnage, and wakes slowly to find reality is not much different from dreams.

Tonight, Noctis rolls over to face Ignis. His limbs are loose now, not confined to one position in a car. There’s still an ache at the back of his eyes from straining them for so long to see through the darkness. Despite sleeping on a mattress no thicker than his pinky is long, Noctis knows sleep will come easily as it always does, and welcomes it.

Unfortunately, Prompto doesn’t have the same circadian rhythm as Noctis does.

Ten or so minutes of Noctis drifting peacefully on the cusp of rem, and he is jolted awake by an arm around his waist. A warm cheek presses into the nook between his shoulder blades, soft and familiar. “Are you awake?”

“Now I am,” Noctis whispers. His voice is sticky, and he burritos himself further in his blanket. “What’s up?”

Prompto hums, burying his face further into Noctis’ back. “Can’t sleep.” No elaboration. He throws a leg over Noctis’ covered ones. This is another throwback to when they used to sleep in the same bed on nights they could both afford to let go. Nostalgia sets in and suddenly, the tightness in Noctis’ body gives out. He wonders if Prompto longs for the past as much as Noctis does, wonders if this is the reason Prompto is thinking so hard he can’t sleep.

“I miss Insomnia.” Noctis startles when Prompto speaks again, the words hitched and filled with too many emotions to put words to. Noctis feels bad for Prompto, who never seemed to like his own house, who hated being alone with such conviction. Noctis can empathise, but where Prompto had no one to go back to at the end of the day, Noctis at least had people present to comfort him in times of need.  

For Prompto there was only Noctis.

Maybe it isn’t home Prompto misses so much, but what ‘home’ used to stand for. ‘Home’ implied Noctis being there for him when Prompto needed it most, in any given situation. Since the call to leave Insomnia, they haven’t been the same when they’re together.

Noctis knows this hurts Prompto, the knowledge leaves a hole in Noctis chest. The road ahead of them is set in stone, however, and they can never go back to being what they used to; a cohesive unit.

So instead of saying all the things that are racing through his mind, Noctis instead says, “Once this is all over, we’ll fix up Insomnia good as new.”

The silence is deafening. Not even Gladio’s snores can be heard through the haze of wrongness the conversation wrought. Noctis hates every inch of his being, how much he doesn’t belong in this moment--wishing he had the power to make things right again.

Prompto is slow as he un-glues himself from Noctis’ back and turns over. The places where Prompto was touching Noctis now burn bitingly. “‘Night, Noctis.”

Outside the thin walls of the tent, an animal wails despairingly, daunting. Tomorrow morning will be bright and sunny after a night of rain, the ground dewey and the air crisp and fresh. Noctis will wake up tired like always, and Prompto will already be up, eating breakfast and chatting with Ignis jovially as Gladio starts preparing for departure to their next definition. Noctis and Prompto won’t talk about the brief conversation they had in the tent the night before, just glance at each other when they think the other isn’t looking with longing gazes and similar thoughts. The world will go on as it is wont to do.

For now, Noctis closes his eyes and wills for sleep to take him under.  


**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this about 2 years ago, back when I hadn't even finished the game yet. I intended to get this pumped out then, but time seemed to fly by, I became extremely afraid to touch my computer, and didn't have a single piece of technology save my phone to finish this fic on. Now, I'm 20, have a brand spanking new computer, on a break from college, and have no excuse not to finish this. 
> 
> This is dedicated to a lovely friend who was with me through my XV phase, indulging me as always, and just started playing the game. I love you, never change. 
> 
> Oh yeah, this is also dedicated to Madonna. Thanks for the inspiration Madonna! 
> 
> Thanks for reading! As always, comments and kudos are appreciated! Follow me on twitter @hallowthysea for art and FF/KH stuff.


End file.
